Tokyo Underground: After the Fall
by Older than Dirt
Summary: When last we see Teil Ashford, he's falling into the Underglobe. But where does he really land and what does he do there? Tokyo Underground one shot.
1. After the Fall

**Tokyo Underground **is copyright by Akinobu Uraku and Square Enix, and I make no claim of ownership. This story starts immediately after the end of big fight that spans episode 10, "Counter Attack – The Revenge of the Water User" and episode 11, "Fight to the Death – Beyond the Hatred". Chapter two is author's notes.

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After The Fall**

Teil Ashford smiled up at confused wind user and snapped his hand free. It was impossible not to laugh at the surface dweller's expression. "I'm not dying this easily! I haven't had my rematch yet!" he called cheerily. Then he fell.

And he fell. He reveled in the feeling of falling. He knew he should be frightened, but he felt too alive to feel fear. But how could he have fallen for so long? He should have reached the bottom of the Underglobe by now. He spoke, only to hear the rushing wind of his fall tear his words away before they reached his ears. "I wonder where I'm falling to? Probably straight to hell. Suits me. 'Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav'n', and all that garbage."

Then he felt it below him. Water. Black, cold and deep. This would be a piece of cake. "Not my day to die, I guess." His smile widened. "Maybe I was born to hang."

Teil reached the water and simply … stopped. No impact, no splash, no shattered bones. It was like he had just taken a step down a staircase to stand on the bottom.

He looked around him. There was natural stone and water and darkness in all directions. He couldn't really see at all down here, but the water showed him what he needed to know. He giggled, then recited: "Where Alph, the sacred river, ran/Through caverns measureless to man/Down to a sunless sea." Then he looked around again and shook his head. "What a dump."

He looked up. Far, far above he could see a faint light. He'd clearly fallen a hell of a long way. He considered rising back on a pillar of water, but he was all bruised from his fight with the wind user. Not to mention he doubted Rumina would still be around by the time he got back up there. And what the hell, this place suited his mood.

He frowned. The water told him that a raft had just been launched from the underground lake's shore. He had the water carry the sounds the raft was making to his ears. Was that a faint muttering? Yes, if he focused on it, he could hear it.

"We hate nasty visitors, don't we precious? Unless they taste good. Maybe this visitor tastes better then those nasty orces? We'll find out …"

Teil blinked. _That_ guy was definitely a few mushrooms short of an omelet. Should he sink him? Nah, not worth the trouble. He gathered a sphere of water and set it glowing faintly so he could see, then he had the water carry him to the far side of the lake. En route he passed an island, were something golden gleamed, pulling at him. Should he stop and pick it up? Eh, why bother. He didn't wear jewelry.

The water deposited him at a large opening in the side of the cavern. It didn't seem to lead up or down, but at least it was away from the creepy lake.

He walked along for a while. The cavern system seemed natural, but there were occasional places where steps had been chiseled in a slope, or narrow passages widened. He wondered who the hell lived down here, and why they bothered.

He passed a side passageway, and stopped. Was that a red, flickering light down that way? And did he hear something like yelling and maybe steel on steel? Maybe he did. He turned and went down the side passage.

The side passage opened out on a large cavern. There, an old dude with a long, white beard, dressed in tattered gray robes and wielding a sword and a staff, was fighting a huge _thing_ made of fire and shadow, armed with a sword and a whip. Teil watched the battle for a few minutes, enjoying the fight. He wondered if he should call the winner. But while he was considering this, the gray-robed guy smashed his staff into the floor, which collapsed under the combatants, and they both fell. He strolled over to the edge of the hole in the cavern floor and looked down. He could see them still fighting as they descended. He shook his head. He wasn't quite dumb enough to jump after them.

He continued on the way he had started. He passed a side tunnel that sloped sharply downward, and stopped to look. Next to the tunnel, the letters **A** and **S** were carved in the wall along with an arrow pointing down the slope. He looked down the tunnel and frowned. The last thing he wanted was to go deeper.

His tunnel continued forward, so he followed it. After a while, one side opened up, the passage becoming like a balcony high over a huge cavern dimly lit by some sort of phosphorescence. He peered out over the side. Far below were rocky gray mountain tops. And below them were dark valleys where mostly unseen things moved … unpleasantly.

Suddenly, he heard flapping from above him. A bunch of creatures like faceless winged monkeys made out of black rubber were streaking toward him, their hands outstretched to grasp. From somewhere out of thin air, a deep, eerie voice was chanting "Ia, Ia, Nyarlethotep, Ia!"

All right, a fight! Teil called up his water sword and smiled. Taking a wide stance, he waited for the first creature to almost reach him. Then dancing aside, he slashed the first one in two. Ha, these things were easy, he thought, as his sword cut again, and again. Parts of the creatures rained down all around him, but a barrier of water kept their dark, unappetizing blood off of him.

The creatures kept attacking, even as he killed them, never making a sound. All too soon, there were none left. He waited for a bit to see if anything else came out to play, but all was quiet. Even the voice had shut up. So he shrugged, and continued on his way. Soon the balcony turned back into a tunnel.

Teil continued walking. Damn, this place is sure boring, he thought. After a while he came to a sharply slanting cross-corridor. The middle of the intersection a man in a white dress sat on a rock, holding a lyre and weeping something about "don't look back, never look back."

Teil shook his head in disgust. Nothing to fight here! Maybe he could get directions to a more interesting spot. He walked up to the guy. "Hey, do you know where this tunnel leads?"

The man looked up sadly at Teil, and nodded. "To my everlasting sorrow. The tunnel down leads to Hades' realm, and the tunnel up leads to Thrace." The man's voice was rich and powerful.

Teil blinked. Neither of _those_ sounded like anyplace he wanted to go. Well, maybe Hades, but people had been telling him to go there for years, and didn't much feel like obliging them. He walked on.

After a while the tunnel widened and heightened considerably. Then, at one side he came to a huge gate of black stone and black metal. Inscribed on it were these words:

_Through me the way is to the city dolent;  
Through me the way is to eternal dole;  
Through me the way among the people lost.  
Justice incited my sublime Creator;  
Created me divine Omnipotence,  
The highest Wisdom and the primal Love.  
Before me there were no created things,  
Only eterne, and I eternal last.  
All hope abandon, ye who enter in!"_

He stood and stared at the gate for a moment, then shook his head. It was widely known that Teil Ashford was a nutcase that'd fight anyone, go anywhere, tell anyone where to shove it, but even _he_ wasn't crazy enough to go through _that_ gate. Although, it could be a hell of a fight … No, bad Rat-Tail! Dying would be boring and inconvenient. He walked on.

He passed through a cavern with **XYZZY **written on the wall. He scratched his head and shrugged. Suddenly, a short, wide guy with a long beard stepped out of a crevice. He was dressed in chainmail and wore a metal cap. He took one look at Teil, and then threw a hand-axe at him.

Teil leapt to one side, and summoning his water sword, knocking the hand-axe aside. He ran forward, slashing at the dwarf. But if the water user hit the him, the dwarf's armor protected him, and he vanished back into the crack before Teil could get another shot. Teil picked up the hand-axe and grunted – the damn thing was heavy! He dropped it, then smashed it into dull metal and splinters with his water sword.

This place was definitely getting on his nerves now. Maybe he should go back to the underground lake and use it to send himself back to the part of the Underground he knew? Well, maybe he'd go a little bit further before turning around. Teil hated retracing his path – it was boring.

A few minutes later, he came to a standard Underground hatchway set in the wall to the left. He placed his hand gently on the metal door. It was shaking at regular intervals – about once a second. Sort of like the ticking of a huge clock.

He tried the hatch. It was locked. He smiled, and took a step back. Two slashes with his water sword, and the hatch fell onto the ground with a very satisfying "clang!"

He stepped inside. It _was_ a huge clock. The room was full of gears and, well, clockwork. Above his head a huge pendulum swung back and force. Directly beneath it was a stainless-steel throne on a frosted glass dais. Upon the throne was seated a figure shrouded in black robes.

Teil stared up at the figure, annoyed that it was taller than him. "Who the hell are you?"

The figure laughed. "You can call me Alchera. I am the Master of Time and Myth for the Underground, and you, Teil Ashford, are the first to find me since the Underground was created."

Teil frowned. "Master of Time and Myth? Are you some sort of power user."

The figure spread its hands. "In a manner of speaking, perhaps. I was created by those who created the power users to speed up time in the Underground so that their projects would come to fruition sooner. But it did not work the way they expected. They forgot the collective unconscious, and the Underground descended into myth and legend."

Teil blinked. "What does time have to do with the collective unconscious, whatever _that_ is when it's up and dressed."

"Time is what ties us to reality. When I cut the link with outside time, it cut the link with literal reality. Now the Underground drifts in the sea of story, dominated by madness, magic and mythology. Particularly down here, of course. Haven't you noticed how much of the Underground's history doesn't make sense? Look at you! You still look like a kid after years and years of working for the Company. Why didn't you ever grow up? Why do your contemporaries, such Seki, Kashin and Chelsea seem so much older than you, year after year? It is because time in the Underground is broken! And I am the one who has broken it."

Teil stared at the figure, his eyes narrowed. "Why don't you fix it, then. If time worked right, I'd grow up. Maybe I'd even get a girl friend or three."

The figure shrugged. "Frankly, I like it this way. I like sitting down here and being the ultimate power. Sorry about the girl friends, but you're going to have to do without."

Teil snarled. "Oh will I?" And slashed with his water sword. But before the sword could hit, the figure raised his hand, and from nowhere a tornado seized Teil and carried him off.

When the tornado stopped spinning, he found himself standing in a bean field somewhere on the top level of the Underground, the earth under his feet fragrant with … fertilizer. Teil glared down in the direction that he imagined lay the Master of Time and Myth. "I'll get you one of these days, you bastard! One of these days."

Then he straightened up and looked around. "I wonder if I can still catch up with that wind user. That was a damn good fight."


	2. Author's Notes

**After the Fall: Author's Notes**

The bulk of this story, is of course, based on Tokyo Underground by Akinobu Uraku. This story starts immediately after the end of big fight that spans episode 10, "Counter Attack – The Revenge of the Water User" and episode 11, "Fight to the Death – Beyond the Hatred". Other references follow for your amusement.

The title of the story is "borrowed" from a play by Arthur Miller, but this story has nothing to do with his story.

"Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav'n" is from Book I of John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost. The line quoted is spoken by Satan – doesn't it just figure that's who Rat-Tail would quote?

"Where Alph, the sacred river, ran/Through caverns measureless to man/Down to a sunless sea." Is from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem Kubla Khan. Supposedly Coleridge was stoned out of his mind on opium when he wrote this.

The guy on the raft is, of course, Gollum from J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. When Bilbo Baggins first encounters him, he was living on an island on an underground lake underneath the Misty Mountains. He often left the One Ring on the island when he was out hunting for food (usually orc or fish).

The guy in the gray robes is, of course, Gandalf the Gray, and the thing he is fighting is the Balrog known as Durin's Bane. "We fought far under the living earth,_ where time is not counted_. Ever he clutched me, and ever I hewed him, till at last he fled into dark tunnels." Who knew that the Underground was beneath the Mines of Moria?

The **A **and **S** carved in the wall refer to Arne Saknussemm from Jules Verne's A Voyage to the Center of the Earth. He was always leaving graffiti like this around.

The big cavern is from H.P. Lovecraft's Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath, the dim gray mountain peaks are the awful and sinister Peaks of Throk, deep beneath Dreamland. The things moving unpleasantly in the valleys are Dholes. The faceless winged monkeys made out of black rubber, are, as any child knows, Night-gaunts, and Nyarlethotep is one of Lovecraft's ominous Elder Gods.

The guy sitting weeping on the rock is Orpheus, who according to legend went down to the afterworld and played the lyre so sweetly that Hades returned to him his dead wife Eurydice, but on the condition that he not look back before they returned to the surface. He looked back. The exact words he's speaking when Teil shows up are, just for fun, from Huey Lewis and The News' song Don't Look Back, which as far as I know has nothing to do with the Orpheus legend.

The poem inscribed over the adamantine gates is from Canto III of Dante Alighieri's epic poem Inferno (first book of the Divine Comedy), where they are written above the gates of Hell.

**XYZZY** and the axe-throwing dwarf are from the very early computer game, ADVENT (or Adventure), which inspired the Zork family of games. The original version of ADVENAT was written by William Crowther.

Alchera is the word for the dreamtime – the era before the Earth was created, and a time when everything was spirit and not physical – in the Arrernte languages of the indigenous Austrailians.

The collective unconscious is a term coined by the psychological pioneer Karl Jung. It refers to the shared portion of each person's unconscious common to all people, and is invoked to explain why the same symbols seem to pop up over and over again in many different people's dreams. Whether these are common elements are shared via culture or more mystical means depends on who you ask.


End file.
